Thursday, 23 July 2009

Alexandra Raikkonen

Born in the winter of 1986 in Porvoo, Finland, Alexandra Raikkonen first started out her competitive fighting career kickboxing. After becoming junior kickboxing champion in southern Finland at thirteen years old, Alex wanted to extend her skills to other disciplines of combat, travelling to Thailand first to learn Muay Thai from the masters.

After spending five years in Thailand, funded by her family, Alex found herself drawn to the rapidly-increasing interest in Mixed Martial Arts and the early days of cage fighting. She soon decided to move to Tokyo in order to learn how to shoot wrestle. Combined with Muay Thai, she figured this would be a good combination of disciplines to ensure success in her future MMA career.

Soon Alexandra learnt of the ludicrous fame and wealth to be had in professional wrestling and decided to try her hand at this instead, packing her bags and shipping out to the United States of America to seek further training and a career as a pro-wrestler.

At 20 years of age, Alex soon found herself involved with the All-Star Wrestling training camp in San Diego. The two years she'd spent in Japan combined with her optimal physical condition allowed her to progress quickly and perform in ASW house shows after a few months. It was with ASW that Alexandra first met Rob "Styx" Cyrus and Draeden "Crusader" Darksky. The three toured the west coast together for some time.

A horrific car crash and several weeks in hospital saw the end of the career Alexandra had worked for fifteen years to achieve. Because of her excellent condition before the accident, she was soon back on her feet and given a clean bill of health, though it was highly recommended that she should not participate in contact sports thereafter.

Draeden Darksky invited her to join him on a journey to Las Vegas, then Chicago, while he was under contract with the Viking Wrestling Federation until she got herself on her feet employment-wise. While living with Draeden in Chicago she set up her own business as a personal fitness instructor and martial arts coach.